3/18: Photo management

Managing your photos

Agenda:

Review last time (Cutting the Cord)

Presentation

Homework:

Review how you manage your photos
Consider setting up a cloud account
Do you have multiple options? Consider eliminating some cloud storage options

Recording:

This was a very confusing class! This video from Tuesday's class might help clarify some of the issues. Let me know if you have questions!

Quick links

Handout

Presentation

Take the survey!

Zoom link:

https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/j/9191959460?pwd=OXh0RE9ZTVZTWElTMUQ0ZzAxQzExdz09

with password (if asked) emeritus

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

1. Transfer your photos (from your device to the computer to the cloud)

2. Organize your photos (finding them, moving into folders, identifying them)

3. Store your photos (cloud, external drive)

4. Delete your photos (from cloud)

Transferring photos from smartphone

Summary of moving photos from phone to computer:

Android:
- USB, Windows Explorer (PC)
- USB Smart Switch (Mac)
iPhone:
- USB, Windows Explorer (PC)
- USB, Opens iPhone on Mac (Mac)
- AirDrop (Mac)

All devices: One of the easiest ways (but not as efficient) to move from the phone to the computer is to send them to yourself via email. You will then open the email and save to your device.
All devices: The ideal method (easy and efficient) is to use a cloud backup service like iCloud or Google Photos. This service can automatically upload all photos from your device to the cloud. You can then manage on the cloud (delete those you don’t way, share the link to albums with friends).

Android to PC (Using USB)

Samsung phone

Connect with USB
Allow access to phone data (allow)
Open Windows Explorer and find your Android device on the side bar
Choose Internal or Phone storage
Choose DCIM folder to access photos on the device or Pictures to choose any downloaded pictures and screenshots.
Double click to open
Select pictures and save them to a folder on the computer (copy and paste or drag to folder)

If the folder for your Android on Windows Explorer is empty

Androids are all unique. Using my Pixel phone, I tried to follow the process above and was not able to view the internal storage on my pixel. I could see the phone in the Windows Explorer window, but it was empty. In this case, I went to settings>connected devices>USB. From there, I checked use USB for "file transfer/Android Auto". Only then was I able to view the internal storage of my Pixel phone.

Find device in Explorer by looking under devices

Or find device on left column of Explorer

Look for the DCIM folder on your Smartphone

Select images in the DCIM folder

Android (Samsung) to Mac using Smart Switch for Mac

Go to the Apple App store and download Samsung Smart Switch for MacOS to your Mac
Connect the Android device to the computer
If it doesn’t start automatically, go to Finder>Applications>Android File Transfer
Your phone files will appear. Drag the photos you want to save to your Finder or Desktop

Android (Pixel phone) to Mac using Android File Transfer

As mentioned earlier, some methods will only work on some phones. So here is an alternative method which worked on my Pixel phone.

Your computer must be using Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and up.

Download and install Android File Transfer on your computer. (download from Apple App store)
Open Android File Transfer. The next time that you connect your device, it opens automatically.
Unlock your device.
With a USB cable, connect your device to your computer.
On your device, tap the "Charging this device via USB" notification.
Under "Use USB for," select File Transfer.
OR, if you don't see the pop-up, go to settings>connections>USB preferences>Use USB for File transfer/Android auto
An Android File Transfer window will open on your computer. I had to share my screen with Android File transfer on one side and Finder on the other. I could then drag from the phone to the computer.
When you’re done, unplug the USB cable.

iPhone to PC (using USB)

Connect the iPhone with a USB cable.
Unlock your phone
If a prompt appears on your phone asking if you can trust the device, click allow.
If asked, you want to open file explorer (you can also automatically download pictures from one to the other)
Select those which you would like to add to your computer
Copy and paste into photos (or drag into photos)
NOTE: You cannot easily find all files on your iPhone using this method. Since most Apple users save data to the cloud, you can view other files and contents by going to icloud.com and signing in with your Apple ID and password.

iPhone to PC (using icloud.com)

You cannot easily find all files on your iPhone using the USB method. But there is a way to see the files you have on your phone. Since most Apple users save data to the cloud, you can view other files and contents by going to icloud.com and signing in with your Apple ID and password.

iPhone to Mac (USB cable)

Connect iPhone to Mac computer and unlock your phone. You may have to enable “trust”
You will have to enter your passcode for the iPhone
NOTE: When you first plug in your phone, you will see a different set of screens. This is a way for you to transfer files from your phone to your computer if they are not being saved to the cloud.
If you were not saving photos to the cloud, you would find them here.
Open photos next
You can choose to Import All New photos or select some of them.
You can select an existing album or just import
Move them to a folder on Apple photos

iPhone to Mac using Airdrop (much easier!)

Make sure that Airdrop is enabled on your iPhone. Go to settings>general>airdrop and enable it.
Open photos app on iPhone and select the photo(s) you want to share. You can click on multiple photos.
Tap the name of your Mac device. Your iPhone will transmit the photos after a few seconds.
You will see a notice on your Mac and can find these pictures in the download folder

Lifewire offers some excellent tips. If you need further help (Android to Mac, iPhone to PC, alternate ways to do these things), refer to their guide on how to transfer photos.

Organizing Photos

Summary of this section:

Where to find pictures (Android, iPhone)
Create an album (Android, iPhone)
Search for photos (Android, iPhone)
Eliminate duplicates (PC, Mac)

Where do you find the pictures?

• Android: In the Gallery. Or, while in the camera app, look for the little image next to the shutter. Click on the image to see recent photos.

• Apple: In the photo app. Or, while in camera app, look for the little image next to the shutter. Click on image to see recent photos.

How to create an album on Android:

• Open the photos app and click on Album and then the 3 dots in the upper right corner. Select “create album”

• Name the album

• Tab on the album and select “add”.

• Go to your pictures and select those for the album. When you are done, tap “done”.

• Confirm whether you are going to copy or move the 2 items.

• You will see the new album.

How to create an album on iPhone:

Open the photos app and click on album, then click on the plus sign at the top left.
Choose “new album” and name the album
The window will open on all photos. Select those which you want to put in this album. Hit done.
You will see your album in albums.

Search for photos on iPhone

Open photos app and select search
NOTE: Apple has categories and places. You can choose one of their categories or type in your own.
After finding pictures, you can share or save (if it is a shared one). If it is your picture, you can share, mark as a favorite (click on the heart), find out more (click on the i) or delete. You can also add a caption.

Search for photos on Android:

• Open photos app and click on the eyeglass (upper right)

• Android photos are organized by tags, shot types, expressions and locations.

• Or you can tap into the search box and find photos.

Eliminate duplicates

Here are some ways to delete duplicate photos from your Mac and your PC. Unfortunately, they usually include software which you must purchase. I am including some possibilities here, but cannot vouch for them, as my success with them has been limited. We will not spend too much time on this in class.

Mac: Use your computer to find and delete duplicates

This did not work for me, but may work for you. Here is a link to these instructions.

In the Photos app on your Mac, click Duplicates in the sidebar.
Note: If you’re using iCloud Shared Photo Library, click the Library pop-up menu in the toolbar, then choose Both Libraries.
Select the duplicates you want to merge.
You can select individual items in a single row and merge them, or select multiple rows of duplicates and merge them all at once.
Click Merge [number] Duplicates.
One original photo or video appears where the selected duplicates were located in your library. Deleted duplicates appear in the Recently Deleted album, where you can recover or permanently delete them.

Mac: Photos Duplicate Cleaner (in Mac App store)

Install, select either “add photos, add photos library or add folder”.
Select photos you want to scan for duplicates.
Select “scan for duplicates”.
You will see the repeats side by side. You can choose to manually mark them or auto mark them. and then click “trash marked”. Agree to continue.

Duplicate cleaner Free 5 (download from web: https://www.duplicatecleaner.com/)

· Install and launch.

· Select search criteria, scan location and then scan.

· Cleans out the duplicates and deletes

· Trial version has limited features For $39.00, you can upgrade to Pro.

Store your Photos on cloud

Summary of this section:

Google cloud
Apple cloud
Amazon cloud
Flickr cloud

Your best option for sharing large groups of photos is to save to the cloud and then send links to others. Options include:

Google photos:

Although Google Photos was free in the past, your photos stored on Google Photos now count towards the 15 GB limit. That is still a generous amount of storage, and there are some advantages to using Google photos. It allows for automatic updates, easy to use interface and a great search tool. It also links with the Google store to create books, gifts and more with the photos.

• To begin, download the free app from the App Store or Google Play Store.

• Open the app and sign into your Google account. Then follow the prompts to start uploading your photos and videos. There’s also a web version of Google Photos for uploading pictures and videos that are stored on your computer.

• To view your uploaded photos and videos, you simply open the app or visit the Google Photos website from any device. Go to https://photos.google.com on the web or tap on the Photos icon in your app to view all your photos sorted in order of date uploaded.

• View an individual photo by tapping on it. This is also how you access the options for editing and sharing a photo.

• Set your phone to automatically upload my photos to Google Photos when connected to WiFi if your data plan is limited.

To turn on the WiFi backup setting:

• Open the app and press the menu icon (three parallel lines) on the upper left of the app.

• Tap the gear icon in the upper right corner to access your settings.

• The first option is backup & sync. Toggle to activate backup & sync.

• Make sure the two options at the bottom of the screen, “Use cellular/mobile data to back up photos” and “Use cellular/mobile data to back up videos” are turned off.

• You can learn more by going to the Google site. Best option if you have only PC/Android, or a combination of PC and Apple products. Requires setting it up on each device by downloading the Google Photos app and enabling it. You can also view your photos online by going to photos.google.com.

Great resource: This resource explains how to use Google Photos

Video: Great explanation of what it is, and how to use it.

Download the app from the Google Play store or the Apple App Store

Find Back up and Sync in Google Photos app

iCloud:

iCloud is best for those who are Apple only. It only offers 5 GB of storage, so it is likely that you have already purchased additional storage (especially if you are backing up multiple devices to the same username).

To set up iCloud photos on your Mac,

• Open the photos app and select Settings

• Tap on “iCloud” and select “iCloud photos”. Indicate whether you want to put the originals on the Mac or only smaller, device-sized versions (regular versions are available on the cloud).

• Your photos will then upload to the cloud.

To set up iCloud on your iPhone:

• Open Settings>Apple ID>iCloud>photos

• Tap iCloud Photos

• Choose optimize or download

Keep in mind that iCloud will not automatically upload pictures from your PC or your Android device. You can find more by going to the Apple support page for iCloud photos.

Set it up on your Mac

Set up on iPhone

Amazon:

Having an Amazon Prime account gives you free, unlimited full-resolution photo storage for free. Or, for nonmembers, you can purchase storage for $1.99/month for 100 GB or $6.99 for 1 TB. You would use the Amazon Photos website to set it up. You can then download the app from any of the web stores. You can access the photos through the app, the web app or the desktop app. If you cancel your Amazon Prime membership, or allow it to expire, you will retain the 5GB combined photos and video storage offered to all Amazon customers. Only you (or anyone who knows your password on Amazon) can view the pictures online, but you can download them to share. If you want them to automatically sync, you would have to use Settings and enable “auto-save”. You can find more information on the Customer help page on the Amazon website. Best option if you are a Prime member and want the free storage.

Flickr:

Flickr allows you to save up to 1000 photos for free on the platform. It is more of a social network than a photo storage though and encourages you to be part of the community. You can download the app for either iOS or Android. If you decide to go with an unlimited plan, you would have to subscribe to Flickr Pro for $60/year. With that subscription, you can automatically backup content from all of your devices. Flickr is best for those who view photography as a serious hobby or even a source of income. It offers great exposure for your photos. See more on the Flickr site.

Other options include Dropbox, Photobucket, iDrive (or another full backup cloud storage site) or Shutterfly.

Deleting your photos

Summary of deleting photos

Free up space on Android device using Google cloud
Free up space on iPhone using Google Cloud only
Free up space on iPhone using iCloud
DO NOT free up space on iPhone using Google Cloud IF you are also backing up to iCloud.

Deleting photos is easy in theory, but can be very confusing. Below are instructions for deleting from your Android phone while keeping them on the Google Cloud. But if you are an iPhone user and using both Google and iPhone storage, you will run into issues. So my recommendation if you are an iPhone user is to pick one cloud service.

Google cloud

Free up space on your Android device

Important: This feature deletes photos from your device.

On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Photos app .
Sign in to your Google Account.
Tap your account profile photo or initial Free up space.
You'll see how much space will be freed up. To delete all the items from your phone, tap Free up.
To see your photos and videos, go to photos.google.com or open the Google Photos app .

For backed-up photos and videos, use Photos’ storage management tool to surface items that you might want to delete, like blurry photos, screenshots, and large videos. Learn how to manage your storage.

Free up space on your iPhone or iPad if you are not using iCloud

Important: This feature deletes photos from your device. DO NOT do this if you are using both iCloud and Google.

On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Photos app .
Sign in to your Google Account.
Tap your account profile photo.
If you're ready to free up space, "select (# ) items to delete from this device"
Open the iPhone or iPad Photos app (not the Google Photos app).
Scroll down to Utilities and select "recently deleted"
Tap Recently Deleted and click select.
At the bottom of the screen, you will see 3 dots in a circle. Choose "delete all".

Free up space on iPhone if you are using iCloud

I called Apple Support on this, and they insisted that photos are not stored on your device, only small versions. They have also said that you cannot delete photos from the iPhone without deleting also from the cloud. But they were wrong! It is true that only a small version is kept on your phone if you choose optimize storage. But if you want to delete even those, it is simple to do:

•Go to settings>iCloud>photos

•Toggle to turn off Sync this iPhone

•Select Remove from iPhone

•In this case, the photos and videos will be removed from the iPhone but will remain in iCloud

Video: Apple support was WRONG! You can delete from iPhone storage and not from the cloud.

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